Kinetic RISC PC, RISC OS 4/5

I wasn’t sure what to expect, but I gave RISC OS 5.28 a spin and made some notes.

My observations are that it ran, but it left me with almost zero RAM available, so unusable. I also gave RISC OS 5.29 a try, both with the same result.

The machine has a base OS of 4.02, and I usually run with RISC OS 4.37.

Has anyone managed to soft-load 5.28 using the Select soft-load ROM tool? So that it maps the available RAM.

Softloading on a RiscPC/Kinetic is fun and games.

I posted my softload setup on StarDot a few years back as its a common problem. You’d need to strip out the ADFS/FileCore fixup code as the post was aimed at RO3.70 as the base OS.

In your case you just need it to replace the CMOS and softload 4.37 be default, with 5.29 being a manual option.

IIRC didn’t Kinetic softload the ROM in to the fast RAM in any case? I don’t see how that could use all the RAM, even if you had minimal non Kinetic RAM. (I had 64MB + 64MB + 2M).

Softloading on a RiscPC/Kinetic is fun and games.

Yeah. It’s not as straightforward as I perceived.

Does it need two drives? If I’m booting between 4.37 and 5.28? Will it work without two drives? I formatted the disk to support long filenames; I guess the second drive might be for the 32bit programs?

I don’t see how that could use all the RAM, even if you had minimal non Kinetic RAM. (I had 64MB + 64MB + 2M).

But it did. Could it have been the way I soft-loaded? I could only initiate a softload from the 4.02 desktop.

IIRC didn’t Kinetic softload the ROM in to the fast RAM in any case?

Yes, the Kinetic does indeed load the ROM in RAM, there is an hardware switch to stop that from happening.

I don’t see how that could use all the RAM, even if you had minimal non Kinetic RAM. (I had 64MB + 64MB + 2M).

The memory where the ROM image is loaded is predefined by the Kinetic and it works fine with RISC OS 4.03 (Kinetic requires RISC OS min version 4.03 IIRC)

However, I also had issues with softloading when using Kinetic, I think there was some issue between the Kinetic “softloading” the ROM and then the ROM trying to softload another RISC OS. I haven’t used it in a long time, so I may remember wrong.

I did test RISC OS 5 ROMs on my RiscPC, it did boot fine (without softloading), however being full 32bit means one will lose all the Podule expansions (RO 5 will refuse podules ROM image initialisation) which for me it’s a no go (I need the MIDI and Audio cards), so I reverted back to RISC OS 4.

Thank you for taking the time to reply.

You’d need to strip out the ADFS/FileCore fixup code as the post was aimed at RO3.70 as the base OS.

How’s that done? I originally commented out the FileCore directory, which is why it fails to work for me.

My set-up has RISC OS on the following drives (Boot) HardDisc4 4.33 and HD5, 5.28.

I used two !Boot folders, renaming to determine which was run at each boot: one contained the normal 4.39 !Boot, the other the ROOL !Boot with a modified soft-load to skip the manual selection of OS version. Main issue was the different numbering of unplugged modules, but it saved having to run two drives (I also considered IDEFS::4 for 4.39 and ADFS::4 for 5.22, but never set that up AFAIR).
No issues with RAM or using the Kinetic (formerly druck’s!) in either mode.
Need to spin the RiscPC up soon to make sure it still works, so will see what’s left of the OS 5-related fettling.

(the penultimate post in the thread Jon linked to is mine)

So, I now have the KineticRPC running 5.28 using the following modifications:
1. download HardDisc4 and extract the !Boot folder as 528!Boot

2. edit the !Run file in 528!Boot to include, after the line to RMEnsure UtilityModule:

| Lines inserted to softload 5.28 before BootVars sets up a pre-RO5 !Boot structure.
RMEnsure UtilityModule 5.28 Set SoftLoad$Dir <Obey$Dir>.Choices.1stboot
RMEnsure UtilityModule 5.28 RMEnsure SharedCLibrary 5.46 RMLoad <SoftLoad$Dir>.CLib
|
| attempt to automate the switch from 4.39 CMOS to 5.2x CMOS - commented out in 2017, so I guess I failed! 
|If "<SoftLoad$Dir>" <> "" Then LoadCMOS <SoftLoad$Dir>.528CMOS
RMEnsure UtilityModule 5.28 Run <SoftLoad$Dir>.SoftLoad -v -m 12M <SoftLoad$Dir>.riscos .NONE.
| End of inserted section

3. create a folder ‘1stBoot’ in 528!Boot.Choices

4. 1stBoot should contain the CLIB module copied from !System.500.Modules, the softload app from the IOMD ROM doownload and the 5.28 IOMD ROM image.

5. Shutdown 4.39, reboot without running the boot sequence.

6. Rename !Boot to 439!Boot, rename 528!Boot to !Boot

7. Restart, holding down DELETE to clear the CMOS to defaults (more effective to hold down DELETE when the machine reboots itself with the soft-loaded ROM?)

8. The 5.28 Choices folder does not contain settings saved under 4.39, so copy across and/or run each application to choose your preferred settings.

Reverting to 4.39 involves steps 6 and 7 in reverse, with settings loaded from a saves CMOS file or re-set manually.